Titanfall: “You Have to Break People Out of How They’ve Always Been Playing”

Community manager Abbie Heppe talks about acclimatizing gamers to the game’s mechanics.

Titanfall isn’t like your typical first person shooter…at all. In fact, it’s safe to say the game does things most first person shooters haven’t attempted. But will fans of Call of Duty and Battlefield be able to get into a game that allows for wall-running and parkour? Respawn Entertainment community manager Abbie Heppe believes some re-education might be in order.

Speaking to OXM, she stated that, “We do tests with random players internally too, so you get that sort of usability feedback. I’ve been working on the game, I know what this icon is, I know why this is happening – but does the average person who picks up the game understand that this means this? Stuff like when there’s somebody on the back of the Titan, what you can do about it.

“I still watch everybody come in and play it like they’re playing a less vertical shooter. They come in, they hide behind cover, they pop out and shoot a dude, they run for the next cover. When we play we’re immediately on the walls and roofs, running around like crazy.

“You have to break people in a bit, and then I see them jump into a wall and they’re like ‘oh, I just ran along it’ – and by the end of the match they’re going crazy and playing more like how I would play.

“Even if you tell them, ‘No no no, you should do this’, it takes them doing it themselves to realise that – ‘oh, you really can! Even after seeing the trailers and the gameplay videos we’ve released, you’d think [people would know], but it’s about breaking people out of how they’ve always been playing.”

Now, what will it take to break them into mechs? We’ll find out when Titanfall releases in 2014 for Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC.